


feel again

by Nyxierose



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5400269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True love is a weird sort of thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feel again

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on tumblr at @electricbluebutterflies.

It starts out normal enough.

* * *

 

He’s good and he’s kind and he’s built like a Greek statue and really that’s all she needs to know. She wants to reclaim herself in ways that require another person’s involvement, and she watches him for months to try to convince herself that he might be what she needs for that purpose. She watches, and she learns a few things - he doesn’t have a type, nor does he get particularly attached to any of the women he wanders off with. But his hands look gentle from a distance and his voice is soft, and eventually Jess decides to take a chance.

Worth it. Very worth it. It’s nice to be reminded what the pure sort of want looks and feels like, nice to lie with someone who actually gives a damn what she’s feeling even though he’s only known her for an hour, nice to be kissed and fucked and all the good things without any sort of fear. Luke’s got ghosts like people don’t talk about during a one-night stand, that much is obvious enough, but she trusts him on instinct. If she plays her cards right, maybe he’ll be a key part of her complicated healing process. She hopes so, anyways.

Except not, because the world is a fucked-up place and the photograph in his bathroom cabinet is all too familiar and  _oh god no_.

She lies about it. She gives him that. She looks away when she speaks of loss, keeps her mouth shut because she felt terrible about that night long before she met another person affected by it. (Long before she took him into her bed, long before the slow waking of what might maybe be love, long before whatever the hell they are now and whatever they’re becoming.) She avoids the bleeding elephant until she’s given no choice, and it’s one of the most painful moments of her life. Standing there, all her protections stripped away, admitting what she did to someone who might (hopefully  _will_ ) kill her for it. This is bravery, Jess thinks as the words come out of her mouth. This is the bravest she will ever be.

It’s better this way, she tells herself as she lies in bed and cries hours later. It’s better if she doesn’t have that attachment, better if she can’t hurt him. She  _will_  hurt him, she’s sure of it, she knows herself too well. She’s a storm of a woman, like one of those Australian fire tornadoes she saw on TV once in human form, and she’s on a goddamned suicide mission. The  _last_  thing she needs is to drag someone else down with her. Especially not someone so lovely, someone whose world never should’ve collided with his in the first place. Especially not him.

She loves him, she realizes in the hellscape of a police station. The demon doesn’t know a damned thing, the demon doesn’t know how wrong he is. Jess stands there and she pictures her light, the warmth and beauty of him and all the things she thought had been taken from her forever, and she decides that she’ll find a way to make things right if she’s still alive in a week. If she survives, she’s going to find Luke and she’s going to apologize until she can’t breathe and she’s not sure what she’ll do after that but hopefully he’ll see her intent, hopefully she won’t be pushed away. Hopefully - and it is that word that confirms her feelings, because she never thought that would be an option for her after what she’s survived but it is. Or at least she wants it to be. Whatever.

And then she isn’t given a choice. She stands on a sidewalk, watches, wonders for a heartbeat exactly how far his powers go and then he walks out with fire on his body and she almost forgets how to breathe because he’s  _alive_. He’s alive and she’s angry because this is a step too far, the destruction of an innocent is too far, it’s terrible and this means fucking war. For now, though, she forces herself calm and does what she can to ease the confusion.

Not her fault he looks so right asleep in her bed, she tells herself. Not her fault he’s still choosing her.

On a rooftop, he offers forgiveness and she wants to cry because it’s too good to be true. And oh what a thing to be right about. What a thing to realize hours later, scared for her life in an old nightclub, everything moving too fast and trying to find a way to stop the monster her dearest has temporarily become. This isn’t him, she reminds herself as she ducks and rolls and runs. This isn’t him, but she has to take him down all the same and she’s thankful for the flash of recognition in his eyes as she pulls the trigger. In that one moment, at least, he was conscious and didn’t hate her. It’s still more than she deserves.

He’s a good man, she says over and over again until she finds someone who listens. He’s a good man and he does not deserve to die, especially not like this, and she’ll fight through heaven and hell to make sure he doesn’t. She finds an ally, another person who’s seen this shit before, and Jess has never been good at making friends but Claire-the-nurse could be a start. Claire-the-nurse, fucking tired-eyed angel who finds a creative solution to the worst of Luke’s wounds and agrees to keep an eye on him while Jess saves the world, deserves a goddamn medal for how useful she is. (What she gets, four days later when the dust settles, is one hell of an anonymously-sent floral arrangement. It’s not what she deserves, not by a long shot, but it’s a valiant effort.)

But before that last battle, before one last shot, Jess lays her body down beside her lover for what she thinks will be a final time and she opens her wounds for him. He’s dead to the world and can’t hear a goddamned word she says, and maybe that’s what gives her the necessary strength. He could’ve been a future for her. He could’ve been a lot of things, but she fucked up and it doesn’t even matter now because she’s going to die in a few hours. She kisses his cheek, inks the taste of him in the most sacred part of her mind, stares a heartbeat longer than she should before she runs off because this is absolutely the final thing she wants to experience.

Surprisingly, Jessica does not die that night.

She comes home a day later, comes home to a vacant apartment - at least, vacant if she ignores the neighbor who might as well have a key at this point. In the immediate aftermath, Malcolm proves exactly how good he is at mending broken pieces. Jess has a new potential business opportunity, and having an assistant makes a certain amount of sense. It’s nice to have another body wandering around the apartment, and turns out she really needed the company. It’s decidedly  _less_  nice when he starts asking questions.

“What happened to that guy you were seeing?” Malcolm asks on a rainy Wednesday a month after everything gets tied up.

“’Seeing’ is a strong word,” Jess shrugs. “And did you somehow miss the part where I nearly killed someone who should be unkillable?”

“Nope. Nor did I miss the part where he walked off completely fine.”

(Malcolm gets that info from Claire-the-nurse. Jess isn’t  _completely_  sure what’s going on there, but Malcolm has a definite crush and it’s kinda cute.)

“Luke was too good for me,” Jess growls, giving Malcolm her most practiced death glare. “I just hope he’s happy, wherever the fuck he is.”

And okay, so she’s still a little bit in love. Not like she’ll ever get the chance to do anything about it, right? That’s what she tells herself for months, until the wounds heal a little bit, until she starts sleeping full nights without nightmares. Not regularly, she doesn’t dare hope for that, but at least it’s  _possible_  now. A lot of things are possible, and in turn Jess is hopeful for the first real time in her thirty-one years. And with that hope, well... a little poking around feels like a good idea.

He’s got an actual goddamned mercenary business now with an office in a building she’s been in before, and she puts on a pretty dress for the first voluntary time in her adult life and takes a little day-trip because she just wants visual confirmation he’s still alive and alright. She waits on a bench across the street for hours, pulls out her binoculars and spends some quality time observing the mating habits of pigeons, waits and waits and then suddenly she feels a familiar presence behind her and  _oh_.

“I almost didn’t recognize you,” he says, voice deep and comforting and warm as ever.

“I just wanted... I worried about you, Luke. I know it’s stupid but I worried about you and-”

“Missed you too,” he breathes.

“Really?”

“You leave quite an impression, girl. Hard to find someone else who can keep up.”

“I don’t like being lied to. If you’re just doing formalities-”

“I mean it, Jess. You’re beautiful and funny and-”

“I love you.”

He stares blankly at her for a moment and she worries she’s gone too far but then the world starts moving again and he leans down and pulls her into his arms and this is what home feels like. Safe in her lover’s arms, memorizing his scent and his touch and his everything, hopeful. She feels his heartbeat mirroring hers, feels the tension leave both of their bodies, feels every breath he takes and it is beautiful. Too much for a flawed human headache like her, but if he’ll let her stay-

“You alright?” he asks, loosening his embrace but not letting go just yet.

“Overwhelmed,” she replies. “Good way.”

As he kisses her slowly on a city sidewalk, she can’t help but think she’s the luckiest person alive. She should’ve run out of chances by now, but instead she’s got this beautiful perfect good man and this time, this time she’s going to stick around.


End file.
